Can Shedeur Sanders lead Colorado to a Big 12 title?

College Football

Updated Sep. 4, 2024 2:59 p.m. ET

Quarterback Shedeur Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes are aiming to make a leap after a promising season that turned into a disappointing 4-8 campaign. They want to make a splash as they enter their first season back in the Big 12 since leaving the conference for the Pac-12 following the 2010 season.

Colorado won its first game of the 2024 season, beating the North Dakota State Bison at home, 31-26. But do the Buffaloes have the pieces to make a run at the conference championship?

Keyshawn Johnson made the case for why Colorado will win the Big 12 on the latest edition of “All Facts No Brakes.”

“As crazy as it may sound, I got them winning the conference because whenever you got the best quarterback — and I believe they got the best quarterback in the conference — you typically win,” Johnson said of Sanders and the Buffaloes. “Florida State was headed to the National Championship last year. Until Jordan Travis got hurt, they had the best quarterback. Andrew Luck at Stanford, they won because they had the best quarterback. USC should’ve beaten Utah and been in the Final Four a couple years ago, [but] Caleb [Williams] got hurt; they had the best quarterback … .

“Shedeur is so much better than he was a year ago. All they got to do is continue to protect him and put the football in the playmakers’ hands, and I’m telling you, they’re going to win the conference.”

Sanders is considered one of the favorites to be the first quarterback — and potentially first overall player — selected in the 2024 NFL Draft, along with his teammate, two-way star Travis Hunter.

Last season, Sanders totaled 3,230 passing yards, 27 passing touchdowns, three interceptions and a 151.7 passer rating, while completing 69.3% of his passes. He also rushed for four touchdowns.

As for Colorado’s Week 1 win over North Dakota State — an FCS program that has won nine of the last 13 league championships — Sanders finished with 445 passing yards, four passing touchdowns, one interception and a 219.4 passer rating, while completing 76.5% of his passes. The Buffaloes trailed the Bison at halftime.

RJ Young pushed back on the likelihood of Colorado winning the Big 12, citing issues that it had last season.

“He [Sanders] is the best quarterback in the conference. He is ridiculously unflappable under pressure. That man sees someone rushing him, he tries to find something to do with the football. That said, that man got hit 199 times last year,” Young said. “That man took 50 sacks last year. That man couldn’t play the last game of the regular season because he had a vertebrae in his back broken. Now, I know that that’s Coach Prime’s [head coach Deion Sanders] boy, and I know how people feel about that, but I got to look at what you have around him to protect him and ask questions. So, if you cannot keep him upright, it doesn’t matter how good a quarterback he is. That’s the problem they have.

“You got Travis Hunter over here. You got Jimmy Horn, who went for 198 yards against North Dakota State, and they’re still in a dogfight with an FCS program.”

On the other side of the ball, Colorado’s defense struggled last season, surrendering 453.3 total yards (11th in the Pac-12) and 34.8 points (10th) per game. The Buffaloes went 1-8 in Pac-12 play.

Colorado’s transfer class was ranked eighth in college football by 247Sports, while five-star offensive line prospect Jordan Seaton committed to play for the Buffaloes in December.

At face value, Oklahoma State (won 10-plus games in two of the past three seasons), Utah (won the Pac-12 in 2021 and 2022), Kansas State (won nine-plus games in each of the past two seasons and won the Big 12 in 2022), Arizona (won 10 games last season) and Kansas (won nine games last season, a three-game jump from the season prior, which was a four-win jump from 2021) are the top teams in the Big 12. All five teams are on Colorado’s schedule this season.

Colorado is one of four former Pac-12 schools (Utah, Arizona and Arizona State are the other three) that are now part of the Big 12 in the wake of Texas and Oklahoma leaving for the SEC.

As for this coming week, Colorado travels to Lincoln to play the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Last year, Colorado handled Nebraska in Boulder, 36-14.

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Big 12

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Shedeur Sanders